Planning to get a 3D printer soon? Maybe you can bundle that with a new affordable 3D scanner from Canadian startup Matterform. The Photon 3D Scanner costs just C$450 ($443) and its makers have already raised over C$250,000 of C$81,000 goal at Indiegogo with three weeks to go. That’s how popular it has become.

In comparison, 3D scanner NextEngine comes with a price tag of $3,000. According to Drew Cox, one of Matterform’s co-founders, “We built [the Photon] in mind for anyone with a 3D printer. It’s a less complicated machinery [compared to a printer]. It doesn’t have the same amount of moving parts that a 3D printer has. There’s a rigidity that printers need to have. We don’t have to have a lot of weight. When it comes to price, it just ended up being [relatively low-cost]”.

The Photon uses lasers to scan objects measuring in at up to 190mm × 190mm × 250mm in high resolution and it exports in STL, OBJ, and PLY formats. Matterform says that the device can complete a scanning job in “around three minutes” on average, and it can be carried around like a mini suitcase when folded.

Of course you can find 3D printable files online, but you won’t find everything. For example if you have plans to 3D print something that’s lying around your house or want to use a clay model you have created in a cartoon, you might ponder that you should buy an affordable 3D scanner.

Are you interested in the Photon? Or are you waiting for more details about the MakerBot Digitizer?

[Source]

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3D printers are an amazing concept. One which has allowed individuals and companies to create unique one of a kind pieces and stunning prototypes which would have been to expensive to make in the past.

The latest 3D printed masterpiece is this Signal designed snowboard. The board was created in parts and assembled like a puzzle with reinforced steel strips to hold everything together to keep the board from breaking.

The one of a kind board has been fully tested and is rideable even in the deepest of snow thanks to it’s special wide nose design. Testers have commented that the prototype is a little on the slow side though, and due to printing limitations don’t expect 3D printed boards to go mainstream anytime soon. Still it is just another way of showing that this is plenty of untapped potential for 3D Printers.

What do you think?

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Vending machines are super useful. You can grab a cold coke on a hot day, tasty snack in-between meals and, if you’re in Japan, discard lingerie when the need arises.

But what about for those times you need something a little out of the ordinary, like those times you need a custom made candle stick holder, prototype suspension linkage or emergency replacement chess pieces? Now, thanks to the Dreambox, a vending machine will dispense 3D-printed models.

The Dreambox is the invention of 3 students at the University of California, Berkeley. The trio were frustrated that conventional 3D printers weren’t easily accessible so they decided to create their own which can be accessed whenever needed.

Designs can be either sent to the Dreambox via computer or connected USB and once printed a text message is sent to say you can pick your model up. The start-up is currently taking orders for their creation which they hope will be a common site in universities in the future.

What do you think of the concept, intrigued?

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Last month, we read about how the European Space Agency was teaming up with architectural firm Foster and Partners. The idea is that they would use 3D printing technology to build a lunar base. This makes a lot of sense, since it utilizes existing resources on the moon to build those structures, rather than shuttling all those materials from Earth. It seems that NASA is working on a similar idea.

NASA is also considering the implementation of 3D printing tech for a lunar base near the moon’s south pole (where sunlight is nearly constant; good for solar energy), but they’re going about it in a slightly different way. The tech is called SinterHab and the spider robot would “sinter” the lunar dust. This means that it will heat it up to just below its melting point, allowing the super fine nanoparticles to fuse together into a solid block of ceramic-like material. The particles would reach temperatures of up to 1500 degrees Celsius during this process.

The main advantage that SinterHab has over the ESA proposition is that this doesn’t require the shuttling of binding agents from Earth. The resulting blocks of material could then be assembled into habitats and other structures that the astronauts could then use as a base.

Embedded above is a video of the Athlete rover, which is a half-scale model of what they would want to bring to the moon for this project. There are 48 3D cameras on board. All they’d have to do is attach the microwave 3D printer to one of its six legs and we’d have ourselves a lunar construction vehicle. Interestingly, Athlete can also split in half into two three-legged rovers for increased versatility.

More work is needed, to be sure, but projects like this clearly demonstrate that there’s more to 3D printers than just making awful-sounding records and 3D busts of Yoda.

[Source]

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You can thank Gael Langevin, a French sculptor, for this creation. He’s been working on this project for the past year and now you can download the open source plans for free from Thingverse. For now, you can only get the plans for “InMoov,” which is a robot hand you can print and animate. You’ll need some building skills, but you can build this and use it. You will also need to supply some “cables or fishing rods” if you want to control it, but at the very least, you’ll need servos and Arduinos for movement.

After Mr. Langevin puts in some more work into the project, he plans on releasing his plans for the torso and head for this 3D printed robot also through Thingverse. It’s only a matter of time before we are able to download some increasingly advanced AI and we really will have our own personal robot slaves companions in our homes to help us with some daily tasks. Let’s just hope that our 3D printed friends adhere to Asimov’s Three Laws of Robotics.

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While the Nokia Lumia 920 is still king of the Nokia Windows Phone 8 world, the Nokia Lumia 820 is certainly a solid choice if you are looking for a mid-range device. One of the features that sets the Nokia apart from other handsets in their class is their swappable plastic shell.  Most phones only allow you to customize the look of your phone with different cases, but Nokia allows you to replace the entire shell giving you a truly “unique” look.

Getting new “looks” is as a simple as heading over to your local retailer and buying one, right? Actually Nokia is making things even easier then that, if you happen to have a 3D Printer. Nokia has just dropped a 3D Printing Development Kit available for download.  It contains everything you’ll need to make your own shells, “3D templates, case specs, recommended materials and best practices.”

Do you think this will be the beginning of a new trend in accessorizing? What do you think about Nokia’s decision to give this information away totally for free?

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[CES 2013] The evolution of 3D Printers is nothing short of exciting, and the improvements in this technology continue to amaze all us at Mobile Magazine. When it comes to evolving the technology, one of the brands that probably comes to mind is 3D Systems.

The company continues to raise the bar, and has now announced yet another new 3D printer, this one is called the CubeX. The CubeX features a build platform that can print out 1030 cubic inches. As you can see from the picture above, that means an object nearly the size of a basketball.

The CubeX features three different printing modes and a resolution up to 125 microns with 3 different print fill densities.  The CubeX, as well as its baby brother can print with PLA or ABS plastics and has a different cartridge system for each plastic.

The price tag is rather reasonable, when you factor in its possibilities, at $2,499. So when can you get your hands on the CubeX? The company is now accepting orders and will commence shipping on February 8th. What do you think, interested or not?

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3D Printing has arguably become one of the latest and greatest technologies to hit the market. Unfortunately, the average person can only sit back and read about these printers because of their high price tags. For example, the Replicator 2 was recently released at $2,000, which was considered reasonable for such a device. Luckily, an affordable solution is at hand.

The Portabee 3D Printer can be yours for only $480, and is designed with portability in mind. Weighing only 2.8kg (6.2lbs) you can bring the Portabee along with you anywhere. For a fraction of the price of the competition, the Portabee offers the following features:

• 120x120x120mm build volume
• T2.5 New! 2GT (GT2) belts and machined pulleys
• Full linear bearings on all axes
• All stainless steel hardware where applicable, hardened steel linear rods (smooth rods)
• Single board solution Gen6.d electronics with integrated fan and SD card support
• Heated platform (printbed) included as standard
• Uses common, tried and tested Ø 3mm* feedstock filament, commonly PLA and ABS materials
• 0.5mm standard nozzle

Due to the fact that the Portabee is designed to be both affordable and more mobile than most other 3D printers  it can only print objects that are around the size of a coffee mug. In addition, unlike the Replicator 2, the Portabee lacks a quality design. Instead, the makers decided to go with the just raw parts as the outer layer. Still, it is hard to complain at such a budget-friendly price.

Interestingly enough, the parts for the Portabee are actually printed by other machines. What do you think of this affordable 3D printer, intrigued or not?

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The era of 3D printing has firmly launched, but there are still some setbacks to using 3D printer technology, namely they aren’t exactly portable. While most 3D printers must be disassembled in order to be moved, two MIT students have come up with a new solution that fits easily in a small suitcase, the PopFab. Ilan Moyer and Nadya Peek developed the PopFab as a machine that could do all 3D editing while folding out from a metal briefcase easily and relatively quickly. Once folded out you simply need to attach the printing head to the fold-out arm, put in printing material and connect a computer to send the design.

The video below is one of what is proposed to be several ‘episodes’ that show off what the PopFab is capable of doing using different heads and attachments. Theoretically the PopFab could be used as a portable solution for vinyl cutting, drawing, milling, object creation and much more. The creators have even tested its traveling abilities by carrying it on aboard flights within the US, Saudi Arabia and Germany. The PopFab is a very interesting device at this stage and could have tons of potential. 3D printing itself has tons of uses, but adding the element of portability takes these uses even further.

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3D printing is becoming more and more popular these days and the researchers at the Vienna University of Technology have come out with an interesting development. Their new high-precision 3D printer can create nanometer-sized objects and that too in record breaking speeds. As you can see above, they have 3D printed a nanoscale racing car perfectly.

With their nano 3D printer, which is capable of creating objects no bigger than a sand grain, they have precisely created complex structures including a racing car, a model of St. Stephen’s Cathedral in Vienna, and the London Tower Bridge. That’s impressive considering the size of these objects.

The technique that they are using for making objects at this scale is known as two-photon lithography. Using a series of mirrors, the team directs a laser through a liquid resin. The laser beam hardens the liquid resin at precisely the correct spots. What you get will be a “polymerized line of solid polymer”.

The 3D printer is capable of printing 100 layers (200 lines per layer) in just 4 minutes. That’s about five meters of polymer printed in a second, which is reportedly a world record. Their biggest hurdle in the printing process was controlling the movement of the mirrors for making sure that the laser was directed precisely.

And what’s the future of all this, you ask? The researchers have started to experiment with bio-compatible resins. That means in the future, they might be able to create biological parts, which can be used in human bodies, via a 3D printer. And the technique can be used to create large 3D objects with precision and without spending too much time.

Check out the video to see the nano printing process.

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